Town Square

Jim Burch's change of heart

Original post made
by HRC, Duveneck/St. Francis,
on Apr 4, 2007

I like this quote from the Weekly regarding the deportion of two parents who ignored a court order to leave the country: "We were motivated by fear. That's what's going on today. When we are motivated by fear, we do things that lack compassion." I think this means that Burch will be abandoning his support of the global warming theory. After all, the proponents of this theory are using fear to motivate people into raising taxes. Glad to see he thinks it's wrong to use fear to get people to use things.

Posted by How about Bush?
a resident of Midtown
on Apr 4, 2007 at 6:56 pm

The biggest user of fear as a motivating factor in this country has been none other than your president, George W. Bush, who used fear of terrorism to sell the Iraq war to the American people, knowing that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and no ties whatsoever with Al Qaeda (until we invaded the country)... This unwarranted war has killed 10s if not 100s of thousands of people (US soldiers and Iraqis), cost the US billions upon billions of dollars and ruined the country of Iraq.

Posted by NoFearTactics
a resident of Community Center
on Apr 4, 2007 at 7:19 pm

HRC, let's be clear, please, about proponents of global warming using fear as a motivator. Most organized groups that are advocating action against global warming are not taking the FUD approach ("Fear, uncertainty, and doubt"), but the preventive maintenance approach -- i.e., it seems pretty clear that there's a problem, and lo and behold, doing the things that fix it also net other nice benefits, like, say, clean air that we can all breathe, fish in our oceans, energy that we don't have to go to war for, etc.

Posted by Mike
a resident of College Terrace
on Apr 5, 2007 at 12:44 am

The Easter Islanders weren't afraid of using their last little bit of natural wood supply to put stones into place, either. Natural selection will take care of those who think global warming is a myth.

Posted by c02 man
a resident of Downtown North
on Apr 5, 2007 at 10:24 am

Of course they're using fear tactics, and they don't want to debate this subject either. After all, the same people were arguing 30 years ago that we would be facing global cooling if we didn't act fast.

"One of the stranger things to happen in recent political discourse -- and this is a crowded field -- is the morphing of global warming into a left-wing plot, a conspiracy by godless scientists to ... well, it's not clear what benefit the scientists get from spreading lies about global warming."

Posted by Deep breath
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Apr 5, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Hey, cO2 man, way to paint with a broad brush.
In the '70s, people were focussed mainly on particulate matter, aerosols, and CFCs. Once the world began to bring those under control (and a good thing, too, in the case of CFCs), it became glaringly obvious that greenhouse gases were an even greater danger.
It's two completely separate issues with separate causes. Think of it as though you've got a patient who comes in with obvious symptoms of advanced appendicitis. The doctor diagnoses and gets him into surgery. But after surgery, it becomes apparent that there's still something wrong -- it turns out the patient's got lung cancer as well. The doc didn't notice the latter because of the more apparent and severe symptoms of former, but both situations are serious and both need treatment. If you were the patient would you tell the doctor that he can only pick one diagnosis? that you can't have lung cancer because he told you you had appendicitis?
My bet is you'd treat the cancer, too.

Posted by JoJo
a resident of Embarcadero Oaks/Leland
on Apr 5, 2007 at 1:35 pm

Deep,

My guess is that with some doctors, the list of "serious issues" in need of urgent treatment is endless. Reason is that the doctor has a financial interest in you having lots of problems to fix. Same thing with the environmental quacks we have around here.

I'm not saying that warming isn't real, or serious mind you. I think it is. But I do think that CO2 man has a good reason to be skeptical of some of the messengers. And I especially think we have to look hard at some of the "cures" propounded by the snakeoil salesmen on hte environmental left.

Posted by Mike
a resident of College Terrace
on Apr 5, 2007 at 2:32 pm

JoJo,

What do you think the odds are that CO2 is the problem? I suspect your answer to that problem is that "nobody really knows", or "it isn't". I also suspect that your mind is as made up on the issue as the radical greenies you excoriate.

Unless you're someone who doesn't live life by playing odds - because that's all there is, as certainty is a myth - one has to wonder in amazement at the weakness of your position.

Posted by Deep breath
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Apr 5, 2007 at 10:30 pm

Walter,
Please explain how all Big Brothers are "liberal".
Big Brother in 1984 is the embodiment of the intrusive surveillance of a totalitarian regime. I suggest you take a look at the work done on authoritarian personalities. A lot of the people who score high on the authoritarian scales (and thus would be likely to support and/or run a totalitarian regime) are people like the current leaders of the right-wing of the Republican party.
And by the by, today's brand of conservatism (and neo-conservatism in particular) is largely an invention of Leo Strauss. Sure there were conservatives in the Revolutionary period... they were called Monarchists.

Posted by mmmmmm
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Apr 5, 2007 at 11:36 pm

Regarding Walter Wallis, I have to question his objectivity in the area of global warming now that I know that he makes a living designing (what I assume to be traditional) heating and air-conditioning systems. Sorry Walter, it seems to me you have a stake in not changing our approach to energy.

"NoFearTactics" either doesn't know what he is talking about or is lying when he says those pushing the global warming theory aren't using scare tactics -- just watch Al Gore's film.

Think of the global warming issue as just like the PAUSD's parcel tax campaign or one of the city's various tax-increase campaigns over the years -- the proponents know that they've automatically got 30% of the people on their side right from the start and 30% against. The trick is getting the approval of the 40% in the middle. So they're trying to scare them by constantly warning about the melting of the polar ice caps, rapid rises in sea levels, tidal waves and flooding of civilization.

But I don't even think people like Gore believe in what they're saying -- it's just a sales pitch to them. I mean Gore flys in private jets, he lives in a 10,000-square-foot mansion and drives an SUV. And he's not about to give up that kind of lifestyle, though he hopes the good people of Palo Alto will!

Posted by Here we go again
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Apr 6, 2007 at 1:00 pm

"But I don't even think people like Gore believe in what they're saying -- it's just a sales pitch to them. I mean Gore flys in private jets, he lives in a 10,000-square-foot mansion and drives an SUV. And he's not about to give up that kind of lifestyle, though he hopes the good people of Palo Alto will!"

Gore owns a mansion, but it houses his family plus his offices with staff. For it, he purchases 100% green power at a premium.

I don't know if he flies private jets or regular airlines, but for every flight he takes he makes sure that offsetting carbon credits are purchased. And I don't know what kind of vehicles he travels in, but if he applies the same principles to his cars/SUVs as he does his house and his flights, I am sure he does it in a green way.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis
a resident of Midtown
on Apr 6, 2007 at 1:08 pm

Actually a significant part of my income comes from preparing energy conservation compliance reports. The more stringent the requirements, the more money I make. As the standards get more strenuous I make a lot more money designing A/C systems, too.
Big Brother is government intrusion in your life. At the level of 1984 it made little difference whether that control was left or right wing. The yoke is O.K. as long as it is your yoke? I am disappointed that a Palo Altan would accept that.

"Here we go again" is sure Gore is doing things in a green way and says "but for every flight he takes he makes sure that offsetting carbon credits."

Gore has said he is buying his "carbon credits" from Generation Investment Management LLP, a firm he just happens to be the chairman of. In other words, he's buying carbon credits from himself.

And what does Generation Investment Management do with the money paid to it by Gore ando ther investors? It invests in companies like GE. Here's a list <Web Link> In other words, its a mutual fund.

A mutual fund to save the world?

But let's say that buying carbon offsets solves everything? If it does, why can't the U.S. government buy billions and billions of dollars in offsets on behalf of all citizens and businesses so that we don't have to junk our SUVs and replace them with mopeds?

Posted by RS
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Apr 6, 2007 at 5:56 pm

I dont think you have the story quite right from what I've read.

Personally I think the concept of carbon offsets is a pretty cheesy thing. So dont get me wrong this is not a complete defense of Al.

Generation Investment Management is a hedge fund.
One of the employee benefits of GIM is it buys carbon credits for all its employees.
Al is an employee, so he gets as a benefit of employment, his carbon credit needs paid by GIM.

Let's assume for the moment though that Al is a total slimey opportunist and he is not practicing what he preaches.
Although that would make him a jerk, it does not disprove the CO2 theory.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis
a resident of Midtown
on Apr 6, 2007 at 8:47 pm

There will be money in Warmieism, and GE learned long ago not to fight the idiots when their nuclear depatment got blown away by Luddism. I imagine the contractors on Easter Island fought over the stone head business.

Posted by Here we go again
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Apr 8, 2007 at 5:53 pm

There is overwhelming consensus among scientists about global warming and its human origin...

For me it's enough of a proof, especially since the consensus exists even though the government has tried to suppress global warming science by every mean possible (such as cut the budget for global warming research at NASA and prohibit NASA scientists from talking about it).

No it's not a 100% consensus, but few things, if any, ever bring about a 100% consensus, and here it is an "overwhelming" consensus. I trust those scientists more than I trust the posters that deny global warming on message boards.

As to the money to be made by "supporters" of global warming, it seems to me that there is as much money to be saved, if not more, by those who want to deny the existence of the problem.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis
a resident of Midtown
on Apr 8, 2007 at 6:35 pm

I find it interesting that many of the scientists have stopped sharing their raw data after the hockey stick guy got a hockey stick in his ear for math that was not just fuzzy, but absolutely hirsute.
The Warmie scientists have a hell of a lot more incentive to nudge their numbers than do any industry scientists, because if warming goes away they are back flipping burgers. Industry scientists have real science to keep them employed, science that has made the US a world leader.

Posted by Haddaway
a resident of Barron Park
on Apr 13, 2007 at 1:34 am

In 1930, a poll of scientists revealed that most of them believed in eugenics. In the 1970s, most believed an ice age was on its way. Also in the 1970s, they believed we would run out of oil by 1990 and that all of the predictions in "The Population Bomb" (massive food and water shortages, use of nuclear weapons by the U.S., suspension of our constitution) would come true. And of course our scientific community was behind the Y2K scare. Yes, polling scientists is always the best way to go.

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